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[LP CYOA] Epic

treave

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Codex 2012
I think that's a smart move, immortal cannibal children and abandonment issues notwithstanding.

It was the largest chair the boy had ever seen, and as he was twelve, he thought that he had seen a lot of chairs.

Upon it sat a man. His face was ageless and handsome, his brown locks cut in a short, severe style. A simple, platinum crown lay upon his brow, set with glittering diamonds. A white cloak lined with gilded trimmings adorned his bare, muscular chest. There was an air of serenity and utter control about the man, though a more astute and suspicious observer might feel uneasy, akin to a placid lake hiding danger within its deeps. Resting on an arm of the throne was a great sword, the blade's metal dark and darker still where blood still lay on it.

The man made a gesture. There was the sound of a struggle, and then the echoes of boots marching on the marble floor in perfect sync. Two of his faceless guards, the Eyeless White, dragged out a ragged, bloody man. The bleeding wounds left a fresh trail of red on the marble. The guards hurled the man to the floor in front of the boy.

The boy stared at the man in front of him. He was dirty, unkempt, and had many cuts all over his body. A few fingers were missing. The man tried to get up, reaching for the boy...

"This man is accused of theft. Banditry. Rape. Murder. His crimes have taken away a dozen lives, and touched the lives of a thousand more."

The convict froze when the man on the throne spoke. Although his mellifluent voice was heard clearly by everyone in the great hall, it was as soft as a whisper in their ears.

"By the laws of this Empire that I have created, I pronounce his guilt."

The man locks his eyes on the boy. Those piercing eyes were slate-grey, just like his own.

"You may eat."

The boy tears his eyes away. He had seen what happened to the children that ate. They were embraced by the man, bloody mouths and all, and led away by an escort of kindly old ladies. He had also seen what happened to the other children that had refused to eat. That had cried. That had tried to run. They were laid out at a corner of the hall, unmoving, their heads removed by that massive sword on the throne.

"Please... don't kill me." croaks the convict, looking pitifully into the boy's eyes.

The boy looks up, at the man he was supposed to eat. Theft. Banditry. Rape. Murder. Since he was born he had always sensed the darkness in others' hearts, and this man's heart was stained like no other. The boy wonders if his victims pleaded before he murdered them. Did he give them any quarter? How dare he plead for his life after all that he has done to others? The boy begins to get angry. Anger is justice. He learned that on the streets. To be just is to punish the wicked. Those that defied him were unjust. To eat and purify their flesh. That is the only salvation they can hope for.

He growls, his small body shaking.

***

As the convict screams in agony, little teeth ripping into his flesh, the man on the throne permits himself a smile. He whispers, this time to himself, "Thus, I claim you as my son."
 

Baltika9

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That...that was beautiful.
:bravo:
But treave, who are these Eyeless White faggots and what are they doing in our personal guard?
 

ScubaV

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treave you should write a novel based on this LP. If nothing else you could probably self-publish and make lots of :takemymoney:
 

oscar

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I've always thought that these Codex CYOAs could be commercialised quite well. I'd certainly subscribe. A lot of these (yours included) easily trump professional authors.
 

Esquilax

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treave, that was fantastic. I love the whole premise of this LP, the creativity and care (not to mention the shocking speed at which you produce updates) that you've put into it: it's just fucking great.

Baltika9, Shamash might be Marduk's right-hand man and probably his most loyal lieutenant, but in terms of raw power, Nabu is the greatest of Marduk's lieutenants. This implies that Edem is the strongest:

Ahati – a Gieloth general, second to Edem in power. She has a penchant for eating young men, and is feared by most of the populace.

Anyways, I think I have a plan to sucker Sekhenun into a bad deal.

At this point, light manipulation powers are probably the most useful ability we could have. We have that knowledge in our mind, but we need Sekhenun to unravel it so that we can actually use it:

Sekhenun weaves together some fragments of Pahnrath's knowledge and explains to you how to use that knowledge - manipulation of light. You can now absorb light from a limited area, allowing you to cloak yourself in darkness or temporarily blind others. There may be future applications of light manipulation as you develop this power.

This would be the deal: we ask Sekhenun to teach us light manipulation without any tricks or insertion of any trackers on her part during the procedure, and in return, we'll let her eat 10 non-Gutian humans of her choosing for every Gieloth that we devour. We'll say that we can't have her eating Gutians because we need soldiers and that disappearing Gutians would fuck up our army's morale. Since we already ate two Gieloth, as a sign of good faith, this deal will work retroactively, giving her twenty humans to eat.

The deal will take place after the first foray our army sacks the first Sumerian town/city.

Here is where the con comes in:

We Gutians do not discriminate by blood, unlike the pansies in the cities. What matters is the strength of it, and your blood is strong.

“If you do this for my children, you are one of us, Ean,” says Gudersu suddenly. His voice drops, threateningly, as he glares daggers at Edem and Nusku. “And we will get you back.”

When our army takes over their first Sumerian city, we will have Gudersu declare that the city is free and all of its inhabitants are now Gutians, for the Gutians do not discriminate by blood. Sekhenun won't be able to feed since the deal stipulated that she wasn't allowed to feed on Gutians, but she'll have to follow through with her end of the bargain and teach us light manipulation.

If not light manipulation, insert whatever piece of info you prefer. I think it could work.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

Guest
This would be the deal: we ask Sekhenun to teach us light manipulation without any tricks or insertion of any trackers on her part during the procedure, and in return, we'll let her eat 10 non-Gutian humans of her choosing for every Gieloth that we devour. We'll say that we can't have her eating Gutians because we need soldiers and that disappearing Gutians would fuck up our army's morale. Since we already ate two Gieloth, as a sign of good faith, this deal will work retroactively, giving her twenty humans to eat.

Here is where the con comes in:[snip]
I'm down for this. As valuable as the knowledge of her people would be - esp. given our hunger - light manipulation would make us into a nightmare in combat.

edit: the problem with your plan is that Sek will just go outside Babylon to eat people... Unless we take over the world, Sek wil always have someone to eat. "But at least she can't devour our friends!", you say? Edem can. And Sek might just be pissed enough at our double cross to have him eat G or one of his kids.

edit2: A modification to your doublecross would be that we supplement our diet heavily with bad humans. That way we can always control when Sek can eat.
 

Esquilax

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I'm down for this. As valuable as the knowledge of her people would be - esp. given our hunger - light manipulation would make us into a nightmare in combat.

Wait a second, what about this:

How about a deal under Sekhenun's previous terms, asking her for the simple promise to not to cause harm to the Gutian people. She can play her schemes if she likes, but if she wants to screw us over, leave Gudersu's people out of it. It's just the sort of self-sacrificing, honor before reason thing that Sekhenun would expect from Ean. She'd think, "wow, this guy is such a sucker."

Since Ean is now a Gutian (Gudersu called Ean "one of us"), Sekhenun would in effect be agreeing to not cause harm to Ean. We would be forcing an agreement of loyalty on her.

Anyways, I do think we can pull something off in the near future should we keep our cool at the moment.

Lambchop19: Yes, she can leave Babylon, but where would she go? All of her plans are tied up in Sumeria. If she decided to go to Egypt, she knows that we'd be able to find her again easily, she can't go to Greece because its swarming with Immortals.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

Guest
Hey, that sounds pretty good! We do need to make sure we get light manipulation out of it though. Tell her we'll need it to defeat Marduk or something...

edit: Esquilax: Oh, she'd find somewhere to go. The hunger would drive her. Maybe India or to the North. Sek's smart and she'd either work a way around it or ditch. Heck, she might just work out a way to have Egyptian convicts delivered to her in Babylon. I mean, if she can get her boss to divert Marduk's armys to Greece, she's got to have pull with her boss and her boss has to have pull with the crown in Egypt.

edit: the more I think of it, the more I like your modification on her deal.


My vote is we agree to the terms of her previous deal if she swears to never cause harm to any of the Gutians. Afterward we can ask for light manipulation in order to assassinate Marduk and his men.

Esquilax:

Your new idea is too complicated. She just has to get Edem to kill Gundersu's daughters before we can marry them.

That and it reveals that Ean cares for specific people. A weakness we can't afford to expose to her.

She just has to promise us not to intentionally cause harm to anyone she knows is a Gutian - except in direct defense of her life. After the deal we tell her Gundersu made us a Gutian - which he did - she'll be a little pissed at first, but might eventually admire our cunning.
 

Esquilax

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My vote is we agree to the terms of her previous deal if she swears to never cause harm to any of the Gutians. Afterward we can ask for light manipulation in order to assassinate Marduk and his men.

Still, I'm not sure that she would agree to that. What about inadvertent harm? Protecting an entire people might not be a promise that she can keep.

What about a promise not to cause harm to Gudersu or his family. And should they come under danger from Marduk or Zeus, that Sek would promise aid them to the best of her power.

We'd better get hitched very soon. Once we tie the knot, Ean becomes part of Gudersu's family. Haha, let's invite her to the wedding.

Kipeci: Good points on Gutian culture and worthiness, but she isn't going to give this shit away for free. Especially since light manipulation for Ean would be just about as broken as the Chameleon spell in Oblivion at this point. However, I've modified the idea a bit. Look at my above post.
 

Kipeci

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They declare people to be Gutians if they think they're worthy; I'm finding it hard to see why the Gutians would declare the cities full of 'pansies' to be Gutians just because we wanted to scam Sekhenun. That doesn't seem like the brightest of ideas. I propose that we just ask her about being taught those powers, explaining that we need all we can to go against Zeus and the like. It's not helpful to her if we get ourselves killed and her rivals/whatever are still running around, and getting those skills potentially for free rather than immediately making a two-way offer would obviously be preferable. Ask about those powers, see what she says about it.
 

treave

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Codex 2012
A - 4
B - 12

Thanks for the compliments but it'd require a hell lot of editing and proofreading before I'd even think of charging for anything I wrote (or even publishing it as an actual novel. My prose is still problematic). As for making deals with Sekhenun, Ean's not calm enough to consider that yet. The issue of light/shadow powers will come up eventually, and we can propose a deal if we're successful in taking Babylon. Discussion about your anger issues will be addressed in the next update. By the way, after Nusku, you can consider Ean to be at pre-quake levels.

Also, had you chosen to argue you'd have lost control and eaten her. If you chose to run from Edem, Gudersu and his family would die when Nusku snaps, and then you don't even have a choice - you will get into an argument with Sekhenun because you are pissed that your bro was killed, and eat her. We missed a chance to go into forced dramatic grimdarkery there. :lol:

***

Chapter 5.10: The Next Step

Sekhenun is the first to break the uncomfortable silence. "I'll remove the tracker." She extends a tendril from her finger and approaches you.

"That again? Tell me where it is and I'll remove it myself."

"It's a fluid that I injected you with. I need to neutralize it."

You ponder over it a bit, but you've already decided to trust her. Grudgingly, you stretch your hand out and allow her to inject you with what she claims will stop the tracking fluid. It was a subtle effect, as you only realize that you had been carrying around a very, very slight presence of hers after it disappears.

"After what happened last time in Crete, I didn't think I should risk losing track of you again."

"Why didn't you tell me about it beforehand?"

"You might have been unwilling."

That was true. If she had told you up front, you might have refused. Still...

"That doesn't excuse what you did at all."

She averts her eyes from your gaze, looking more repentant than you've ever seen her - which is to say, just a bit. You swallow your anger. It served no purpose to be angry right now... and you are starting to become concerned about your increasing ease to anger. It might jeopardize your mission if you don't manage to keep it under control. Discussing it with Sekhenun might give you more insights, but for now, you decide to change the topic to that of your little revolution.

"You mentioned the next stage of the plan. What would that be?"

You feel her relax. Sekhenun's relief was palpable, and a small smile manages to play itself back onto her lips as she begins talking.

"Right now the only loyal lieutenants Marduk has in the area are Ahati and Ramman. The cultists are ready to begin an uprising and Edem has ensured that news will reach Shamash too late to prevent him from sailing."

"What do we do about Ahati and Ramman?"

"Ibilsin, the Grand Priest of the Sons of Marduk, is throwing a grand banquet in a few days to celebrate his seventieth year on this world. Dapimsin and Ahati will be there. Many of the servants at the banquet are cultists, so it should be no problem getting in. Ramman, on the other hand, will be inspecting the food supply of this city. He will be at the warehouses at the edge of the city walls on that night for a quick visit before attending the banquet later."

"All of the eggs in one basket." You exhale. It looks like the end-game of your assassinations was close at hand.

"Precisely. If we do this in a single strike, we win. I'll be helping out directly this time... I'll go after the target that you don't pick."

"What about Edem?"

"He will be riding to Egypt to report to Marduk on the status of his investigations. Apparently Nusku was in league with the cult, experimenting on them to create soldiers with which he could overthrow his king. He fled when Edem caught onto his tricks, and has been missing ever since. Marduk will want his help against Greece, so he will not be too concerned about Edem's swift return."

"Ah."

"I was hoping he would stay to help, but that man has plans of his own. So, which will you pick? Ahati, or Ramman?"

***

A. Ahati has a known weakness to young men - you decide to prey on that to infiltrate the banquet, seduce her, and murder her. Sekhenun will handle Ramman.
B. Sekhenun is better at infiltration and deception - you task her with sneaking into the banquet and taking care of Ahati while you go after Ramman.
C. You attack Ramman together with Sekhenun before the both of you go to the banquet. This might alert Ahati, but it is safer to fight together.
D. You attempt to get rid of Ahati before Ramman arrives at the banquet, and then kill him when he does so that you don't have to face both of them at once.
E. You wait for all of them to be at the banquet before walking in like you own the place and starting the revolution. Far more stylish.

***

The Gutians are still out there, near Babylon.They are probably worried about you, but you cannot spare the time to leave the city to meet them.

A. You send Gudersu a message explaining your plans and request him to raid the walls as a distraction on that night.
B. You do not need the Gutians to help you. You will contact Gudersu after you pull off your plan. Messages can be intercepted, a messenger made to talk. It's too risky.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

Guest
Sek is probably too weak to do in either of these two on her own. A consequence of the "diet" she's been on. Ramman is a general, so it's likely he has high combat skill. Ahati is 2nd strongest compared to Edem, so I guess that means she's a psychic... She'd know something was up the moment she couldn't sense us, so deceiving her wouldn't work...

Good point, Smashing Axe, but I still don't think Sek can handle a general on her own. She might be able to mask her psychic presense, but there are other senses one develops in war - like hearing, smell, and sight. Maybe at her peak she could stand a chance, but not now. Heck, even at her peak our combat skills were more than she could handle. If this guy is even nearly as strong as the general we faced at the fort in Egypt who was martially better than us, she wouldn't stand a chance.

Ahati on the other hand, could overwhelm her with psychic abilities...not as sure about that one.
Hmm. Ok. Ahati is the combat one..

Yeah, AA is the only one I'd consider besides CB. AA is the biggest gamble, but with the greatest reward. The distraction the gutians would provide could help Sek win against Ramman - if he's not captured or killed... The reason I don't like CA is that it's the worst of both worlds. We'd be attempting to gamble by risking our messenger being intercepted, but we'd try and play it safe by attacking with Sek. Plus not sure what role the gutians would play in CA. They'd be a distraction - for who exactly? Ahati? She'd be at the banquet...

Smashing axe's plan is good with 2B. Sek's always been good with poisons. If treave allows it, then my vote it for that plus B.

Otherwise CB is my vote.
 

oscar

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Both C and D are tempting. I imagine that even though we are still primarily an ass-kicker, our psychic blank will give us a big advantage in a straight fight with Ahati. Hm.

CA. I'm not at all sure about whether to bring the Guitans into this. I feel with C we'll lose the element of surprise anyway so may as well take the risk of the message being intercepted.

After that Ahati should be fairly easy with Sekhenun, our psychic resistance and cultist support.
 

Smashing Axe

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Divinity: Original Sin
Sek is probably too weak to do in either of these two on her own. A consequence of the "diet" she's been on. Ramman is a general, so it's likely he has high combat skill. Ahati is 2nd strongest compared to Edem, so I guess that means she's a psychic... She'd know something was up the moment she couldn't sense us, so deceiving her wouldn't work...

CB is my vote.
It's been established before that we can "project" a human presence so Ahati's senses are not a concern for us. treave, could we ask Sek how strong she is and whether she considers herself capable of taking out one or the other?
 

Azira

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Codex 2012
Sekhenun has been learning to shield her presence though, not unlike the trick Ean has. Don't count her out just yet.

I'll abstain from voting for now, want to see what the rest of the crew says. :M
 

treave

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Codex 2012
If you were to ask Sekhenun, she'd say she is more confident of taking on Ramman than she is of taking on Ahati, though you're not sure if she's talking about a straight fight.

Also, Ahati is actually known more for her combat prowess. Ramman is famous for his ability in warfare in general. Logistics, organizing armies and the like. Almost as good as Shamash in that aspect, but he has the added advantage of shadow powers.
 
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Voting CA. At least for now.

Smashing Axe plan + B

Or if that is not possible (ask Sekhenun what she thinks of the plan!) CA.

But let's try not to eat anybody for a change. Really, we have eaten more then enough lately and devouring even more Gieloths isn't going to have any effect other then further weakening our already shaky self-control.

Edit: Also, not eating anyone is even more important if we are going with Sekhenun. If she is ever going to really betray us, it will be out of fear of what we are becoming. Showing her we are still firmly in control of our hunger is important to avoid that.
 

Esquilax

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treave, how many warriors does Gudersu's tribe have? They've got 2,000 people, so of that, I would assume that the proportion of that number that are fit, young men would be ~500-600. Also, is the only difference between 1D and 1A the type of approach, with the former being straight-up asskicking and the latter being seduction? Sek would still go after Ramman regardless, correct?

Here are the potential plans I see working:

AA: Ideally, this would mean that Ean can present himself as bait to Ahati and take her out before she realizes what's happening while Sek gets backup and a handy distraction from the Gutians to provide her with a window of opportunity to take out Ramman. On paper, it's the best choice.

Realistically, a ton of shit can go wrong here. It puts Sek and Ean in a bit of a role reversal, with her being in a combat situation and Ean being in a seduction/manipulation scenario. Even though Ramman is a skilled general and the shadow powers are sure to give our men fits, it could also give Sek the chance she needs to take Ramman out.

The biggest problem with AA will be Ean's rage. I have a feeling that Ahati will be doing things that disgust Ean and provoke his anger, so we have to be really careful and know exactly the right moment to strike at her. Too early, and she's prepared for our assault. Too late, and we go nuts and feed on her, sinking ourselves even deeper.

DA: The ruthless option. Ean engages Ahati in a straight-up fight with Sekhenun alongside him. The Gutians get slaughtered by Ramman. However, that provides an effective precautionary measure; if Ean gets hurt badly in the fight against Ahati (very likely considering her combat prowess), the distraction buys him time to regenerate his wounds to go for another round against Ramman.

Edit: Now that I've read through the update again, I don't think that any message will get intercepted. The reason being that authorities in Babylon will be on the lookout for cultists, not barbarian insurgents:

"He will be riding to Egypt to report to Marduk on the status of his investigations. Apparently Nusku was in league with the cult, experimenting on them to create soldiers with which he could overthrow his king. He fled when Edem caught onto his tricks, and has been missing ever since. Marduk will want his help against Greece, so he will not be too concerned about Edem's swift return."

We've spent a lot of time nurturing a relationship with the Gutians, so it seems like it might be a mistake to not use them now that we've got everything in place.

Voting for Smashing Axe + B

Failing that, AA
 

treave

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Codex 2012
Yeah, his tribe can gather up maybe about 400 warriors at a pinch. Could maybe be more, but they're a bit scattered around the area at the moment, so it'll be hard to get everyone.

1C will mean a straightforward battle with Ahati if you get done with Ramman.
1D has you infiltrating together with Sekhenun, and you try to finish things before Ramman arrives.
1E has you walking in, making a grand speech, then trying to fight them both.

Not going to the Gutians and training the cult meant that you'd now have a band of competent and deathly loyal cultists that you could assign to back either you or Sekhenun up.
 

Smashing Axe

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Divinity: Original Sin
EA_E311.png


I know it's risky, I know it's fool-hardy, but I'll be damned if it isn't stylish. With the Gutians, the cult, our restored powers, and Sek behind us we should be able to take down two mid-level Gieloth without all this skullduggery. What could be a more fitting start to our reign, than to take them down so garishly?

p24.JPG

They will all die after our master speech.

Just have the cultists lace the food with some gieloth poison Sek probably knows about and then stroll in casually as they start choking to death. We have cultists as servants, so why don't we use them?
 

treave

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Codex 2012
Smashing Axe, great idea, can't believe I missed that. :oops: Unfortunately pinning the cult's blame on Nusku means that they are a bit wary of Gieloth foul play and have certain precautions in play. But just a bit. Sekhenun isn't some fledgling and could probably figure a way around those... hm...
 

Smashing Axe

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I suppose the downside to poisoning them would be that Ean won't be able to feast, since he shares some traits of Gieloth physiology now.
 

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